


Far from Heaven

by rosemilagros



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Space, Gen, M/M, Plot, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-10
Updated: 2015-03-10
Packaged: 2018-03-17 05:10:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3516569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosemilagros/pseuds/rosemilagros
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Earth is falling apart with overpopulation, poverty, sparse resources, and a feeble world union. Humanity's only foreseeable salvation lies with a prosperous alien society reluctant to get involved in the affairs of a diseased planet. </p><p>After Toby Ziegler knowingly puts the President's negotiations with the Head of State at risk, he is sent to spend two weeks in alien space among a civilization he detests. At first viewing this as a penalty, he then takes it as an opportunity to study the people who have denied aid to his species for so long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Far from Heaven

 

> "Those are the same stars, and that is the same moon, that look down upon your brothers and sisters, and which they see as they look up to them, though they are ever so far away from us, and each other."
> 
> — Sojourner Truth

 

  


All the days and nights spent in space this past year: he never stared so long into the abyss. Trillions of pinpoints of flaming gas right in front of him, as real and tangible and close at hand as snowflakes. He reached out to touch them, to brush them aside like dust from a mantelshelf, and his hand collided with the window.

Toby had been out of the solar system before on various spacecraft, alien and human, but never any so huge or extravagant. This ship closely resembled the grandiose space station at Proxima Centauri, another jewel of ingenuity from the Aubraparans, which had recently been disclaimed as the formal meeting place between their two governments in favor of a more practical rendezvous only a light year from Sol. It was no inconvenience for the aliens; Aubraparan ships were much faster than any human craft and this relocation added less than an hour to their flight, but saved the humans 16 days, a ludicrous amount of traveling for short-lived negotiations that never went anywhere.

Around the internet and media and even in the halls of some agencies rumors circulated that spacecraft used by Aubrapar's diplomats, as fast as they could go, were actually on the slower end of the spectrum, and that the aliens' technology was far more advanced than they let on. Toby did not doubt this, but neither did he suspect Aubrapar was purposefully concealing superior machinery; if the aliens were sparing efficiency it was only to afford room for luxury, as they often did. Toby hadn't seen much of the Proxima Centauri station's interior other than its conference rooms and the stage-like platform from which presidential addresses were broadcast to Earth and the Society, the alliance of planets which Aubrapar oversaw, but even the areas reserved for solemn business and government affairs were ridiculously ornate and designed for comfort. Their vessels were more like flying hotels than anything else, and this, the Head of State's cruiser, was the crown of them all.

There seemed to be no concept of the separation of business and pleasure in Aubraparan culture. This ship on which pivotal decisions were made that affected billions of souls was also home to a full-sized spa and steam room, a five-star restaurant, and, purportedly, a private indoor pool for the Head of State. Another feature, one he had yet to see an alien spacecraft without, was the enormous rounded viewport optimized for stargazing. There were several on the Proxima Centauri station and Toby had stood in a few of them, but none were this colossal and beautiful, allowing one to experience the true enormity of space.

He stood as close as he could to the glass, both hands clutching the rail in front of him like he was in danger of falling forward, passing right through to the vacuum of space and suffocating. The glass curved far over his head and past his feet, encompassing the level above him and the one below in a bubble intended to instill awe at the cosmos and a sense of smallness in the viewer. Staring into the black void only put pressure on Toby's chest and made him long for the security of dirt beneath his shoes. He released the railing, slowly, making sure the floor would not give out beneath him when he did, kneading them into one another to dissolve the clamminess in his palms.

C.J. stepped into place beside him. She still wore the coat Toby lent her yesterday after she complained about the temperature. Space was always too cold for her, whether or not the internal heating systems were optimized for human biology. They watched together as a Secret Service boat passed before them, either one of their own or President Mebrahtu's, who accompanied their president here from Earth for undisclosed reasons. It crawled at a respectable distance beside the considerably larger alien ship they occupied, red lights blinking at bow and stern.

"The President's agreed to give you two weeks paid vacation," C.J. said, almost like a whisper, almost like if she didn't keep her voice down they might hear her on Earth, across trillions of kilometers, overtaking any plans she made to weaken this story before it began. She tried to be soft but Toby knew her too well to mistake the anger in her voice. "On Kepler 21… something. The Society has a different name for it." She paused. "Supposedly a lot of defectors settled there." Emigration was not as weighty an issue as it once was, but for as long as Toby knew her C.J. had been passionately against it; he could feel the hostility radiating like a fever from her forehead at the mere mention of the topic. She took a breath, deep, through her nose. "They have access to our internet there, probably a little slow, but you can get some work done if you want…"

Toby straightened his posture. "I don't need a vacation. This isn't a… stress thing," he said, his first strong words since this afternoon's incident. It was late now, almost midnight by his watch, but for their alien friends it must have been a few hours before supper. "I have legitimate complaints about the way things are being run around here."

"Yeah, you and 18 billion others."

"18 billion others that aren't paid to advise the President in circumstances like this."

"You're a speechwriter. You don't advise the President on foreign policy and even if you did, when he tells you to shut up, you shut the hell up."

He slipped a hand into his pocket, searching for something. "Yeah."

"And you didn't shut up, Toby."

"Yeah." He patted his breast pocket, apparently unable to find what he was looking for. "You got a cigar, by chance?"

C.J. glowered at him. "No, but I do have a strong feeling that it might reflect badly not only on the continent we represent but the entirety of humanity if Aubrapar learns we like to inhale tar for fun, but I'll ask around for you."

"Would you?'

"Two weeks, paid leave. Kepler 21-whatever." She turned to leave.

Toby once more leaned on the railing in front of him. "Half of Earth's population won't be able to feed their children tonight and we're paying to put me up in a resort for fourteen days."

C.J. paused. "You and the President have never been best friends—"

"Keep the paid leave."

"You and the President have never been best friends," she repeated, "but do you really think it's out of the question for you to keep your mouth shut every once in a while and trust that he doesn't need your help in there?"

Toby focused on her face, empathetic eyes twisted with anger and concern and frustration, then turned back to the thin layer of glass that stood between their lungs and suffocation. C.J. took a deep breath and relaxed her shoulders when he did not respond.

"I can find you a cigar if you want," she said.

The Secret Service boat alternated its direction now and drifted backward, as though to avoid advancing too far and leaving them beyond its surveillance, continuing this oscillating motion simply to appear informal. Toby ignored her offer. "What are we doing out here?" he asked, vague and repetitive of what he'd been saying all week. He did not expect his words to flow into another sentence. "We have enough problems on our own continent, on our own globe, and we've wasted months out here with these egotistical tycoons that don't know the meaning of the word poverty. They're toying with us. They've been toying with us for 50 years, and no matter how much time and money we spend on the hope that they might come to some sort of compromise, they're gonna keep dragging us out here just to flaunt their wealth and argue that they can't do anything for us. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs to get their head out of their ass. That includes the President."

C.J. drew in a sharp breath. "Yeah, see, when you say stuff like that it makes me nervous about ever letting you step foot in the Oval Office again."

Toby bowed his head in exasperation. He felt C.J.'s hand, cool and gentle, stroke between his shoulders. "We're opening up negotiations on tariffs and trade regulation," she reassured him. "We're close to signing a revised agreement. That's new money, new business. We're making change. We're not wasting time here, Toby."

"So, we give them wider access to our market. What do you think's gonna happen?" Her hand fell from his back. "You think... they're going to buy wheat, silicone, invest in photovoltaics? We're Neanderthals to them. We don't have anything they want. The only thing they get out of signing any trade agreement with us is good karma—which, I don't even know if they believe in. Any new agreement we come to will increase trade restrictions, which means an increase in an already steep percentage of illegal bartering. And last I checked we didn't have room in our budget for an effective method of enforcement along a trade route that spans 5 light years."

She tilted her head to the side. "Y'know, Toby, it's very unlike you to be so pessimistic."

"We can't keep looking to other planets to fix our problems. Think of all the money wasted on space programs that reaped no benefit other than to say, 'Look what we did.' 80 billion blown on the Venus colony, 1.3 trillion spent developing better FTL drives just so we could hull ourselves out here to the middle of nowhere. The President has three kinds of state-of-the-art spacecraft that vary with the length of flights he shouldn't even be making. This, this trip? These meetings should be handled by ambassadors and economic experts, not the Presidents of East Africa and North America."

"Aubrapar and the rest of the Society would see it as a sign of weakness and disrespect if we didn't have our leaders here and you know it."

There were many experts on Aubrapar and its cultural that advised them in these matters, and Toby knew very well how sending an envoy in the President's place would be viewed. "The President has better things to worry about than offending ET."

"That's not your call."

The Secret Service craft moved out of range now, around the stern of their stationary ship, constantly monitoring for any abnormal readings. The Aubraparans had concepts of bodyguards and sentinels, but their government had nothing quite like the Secret Service. The greatest threats to their leaders were from outsiders, and it seemed that their own citizens were never much of a concern. The aliens grudgingly tolerated the President's sizable escort party, and from what Toby perceived they found the idea of it humorous: all this undertaking to protect a man shorter than their average adolescent. Toby took a deep breath and his hands latched on to the railing in front of him. "I can't talk about this anymore."

C.J. watched him in the somber way she often did and turned her back to the window. "Departure's in 3 hours," she reminded him. He saw her movement in the weak reflection of the window as she walked away. Her heels were silent on the thin carpet.

— -

On Earth, he is lucky. Apartments are standard these days, even for large families. The cities are packed with people and apartment complexes; neighborhoods full of duplexes and cheap housing line the highways even into the suburbs which every day look less and less like the suburbs of yesteryear. The only thing that differentiates them from the city is the height of the buildings and the way they are arranged, slapdash and unplanned with streets that meet at odd angles, unlike the neat but dirty grid of the city.

The only houses left are old, crumbling, faded memories of better days, and ones that are still occupied are likely shared by grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles. Only the very wealthy have bedrooms to themselves. The big cities are the worst; New York and LA, Chicago, Philadelphia, all crammed with people and hunger and disease.

The District of Columbia, a relic, an exhibition of the way things were, is reserved for diplomats and those that work for them and the very lucky few that come there for temporary business. It began before Toby was born. When the cities began to get truly crowded, when Congress had to limit the amount of unaffordable houses being built, when they could no longer spare any more land, that was when the cities and the cheap living began to crowd. Toby remembers vividly the red yarn his mother tied to his wrist and the wrists of his siblings when they went walking in Brooklyn, the sidewalks so packed with bodies that he had to turn his little head skyward in fear of suffocation.

Coming to Washington was another world. The streets were clean and deserted and the buildings he had only seen in photographs gleamed on the horizon like marble palaces of God. He worshiped this city as if the Divine had constructed it himself. The air was sweet and fresh like cold water in the summer and for his first few weeks as Communications Director, Toby booked several of his meetings outside the White House simply as an excuse to walk along the city's streets. The newly-elected President Bartlet had paid many visits to Washington before and lived there during his service in Congress but he indulged Toby and many of the staffers because he too remembered his first breath of its pure air, like lotion on dry skin, savory food on an empty stomach, a shower after days without one.

Toby was a bitter old man when he came to Washington, and now he felt like a child waking up on their birthday, like every moment gave him the pleasure and satisfaction of crawling into a warm bed.

Josh walked with him sometimes, along the Tidal Basin, while they were still getting used to their new home, and together they enjoyed the thawing February weather. Toby had tasted this freedom only in old storybooks and Shakespearean sonnets, and despite himself he wanted to do nothing but bathe in the clear water at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial and fall asleep in the lush grass that grew everywhere around them.

But there was work to be done, and nothing this sweet could last for long. Gradually these streets dulled and in his eyes Washington mocked the world. They left the district often to visit other towns and saw the crowded streets and the people that would never know privacy and their faces made him nauseous. The President stood above them on platforms as they smiled and cheered for him and when he was done they soared home like gods on Air Force One, high above the head of every citizen. Each return to Washington, its clean streets, its heavenly embrace, was a stab to his heart. He wanted so badly to share this with the nation, entire generations that knew no luxury. He wished he could paint the world with whatever magic this city held.

— -

It was exactly 45 hours back to Earth from their new rendezvous point. Their flight could have been radically shortened if the Aubraparans could be bothered to travel the extra light year and overlook the fact that it put them insignificantly closer to Earth, as if that gave the humans some sort of advantage over them and did not put Earth in as much danger as their pride. It wasn't as if one light year—a distance that would take little over an hour in one of their ships—made any difference to them. Nothing had ever seemed completely rational with Aubrapar or any member of the Society for that matter—the other planets they had no information on aside from what was absorbed through contact with their ally Aubrapar, which was not much.

Toby met with the President aboard SS-1 just before they reentered the solar system. Neither the incident aboard the Aubraparan vessel nor reprimands for his behavior were discussed. He thereafter kept his distance from the President until they were safely back in Washington and pressing issues which demanded the Commander-in-chief's attention made avoiding him significantly easier. He was, for that night, safe.

What C.J. had relayed to him in the viewport days before was unfortunately revealed to be true. Leo confirmed it in his office the morning following their return to Washington, directly after a short and uneventful staff meeting. During the flight back to Earth, after it became clear to Toby he wouldn't be fired, he inferred that Leo had likely been the one who saved his job. He was the only person with a voice big enough in the President's determinations to defend him. But Leo wasn't a pushover, especially not for Toby, and he wouldn't let him off without a substantial slap on the wrist.

In the wake of the staff meeting that morning Leo gestured at him before he could even stand from the couch and told him to hang around, procuring the gander of a few interested staffers as they left his office. Toby caught C.J.'s eye, admonishing and tense, just before she disappeared into the hall.

"You got a few vacation days saved up, right?" Leo asked as he went around to the doors to shut them. It was futile to bother with discretion at this point; the entire White House whispered with rumors about what happened in front of the Head of Aubrapar and the subsequent status of Toby's employment. He would be surprised if the whole press corps wasn't already digging around for any details they could find.

As Leo encircled his desk, Toby stood and folded his arms behind his back. "I didn't think we got vacation days."

"We don't," Leo rejoined. He dropped the folder he held onto his desk. "So I'm giving you some."

Toby stopped. Leo put his glasses on to read something, and there was half a minute of silence between them. He had no trouble recalling what C.J. said about the President's intent to assign him time-out somewhere in Aubraparan space; he crossed his fingers in hopes that she fabricated the second part only to intimidate him, or at least that Leo had enough sanity to stop the President from banishing him into the next stellar neighborhood.

Leo began to rummage through the drawers of his desk, disturbing the silence between them. "Ever heard of Kepler-22b?" he asked.

Toby unclenched his jaw to speak. "No."

"How about a little rock called Ej-liara?"

Toby's knowledge of Aubraparan language was minimal. He certainly couldn't speak as much as the President or some of the staff (C.J. in particular prided herself on the numerous compliments she received from Aubraparan officials on her pronunciation of various names) but he knew very well what Ej-liara meant. Ej was the lazy Aubraparan pronunciation of Earth, the alien's adopted name for their planet despite the World Leadership Council's declaration 70 years ago that their planet would formally be known as Terra. Needless to say the name hadn't caught on, either with the aliens or in any human lexicon where it was not already present. Toby had come to understand that Ej-liara translated more or less to Earthland: a planetwide resort where Aubraparans and other citizens of the Society could experience exotic human culture without actually visiting their diseased planet.

The resort opened when he was very young. There was still free travel between Earth and Aubrapar back then and he remembered vividly the TV and cyber advertisements inviting humans to visit Ej-liara, mesmerizing them with tales of its clean air and cutting-edge technology and, most desirably, secluded beaches and lonely mountain resorts, quiet villages with no more than a handful of residents. To an 8-year-old boy who shared a bedroom with two older siblings and a baby, Ej-liara looked like paradise. Only when he was older did Toby realize Aubrapar was only recruiting livestock to add to the authenticity of its theme park. They immodestly taunted them, knowing very well most humans couldn't afford to leave the continent they were born on, let alone their own planet.

He held back from saying something vulgar. "They're still running that place?"

"Looks like it." Leo lifted what looked like a cut of hard plastic from his open drawer and kept it in his hand a moment before handing it to Toby. "Voliar Ivaja gave that to me before we left." It was a thin square of something like plastic, translucent, bendable, and upon holding it Toby could immediately tell the material was extraterrestrial.

The device shimmered as it came to life and displayed an advertisement in vertical Aubraparan script, none of which Toby understood. Photos of Earth-like beaches and mountains and a humble marketplace with familiar produce flickered across the screen.

"Ivaja gave this to you?" Toby asked. Voliar Ivaja was one-eighth of the Head of Aubrapar's advisory committee, whose function in the planetary government was so vague it had to be either intentionally ill-defined or alien to the degree that it had no earthly equivalent. The Advisors (known individually and collectively as _Voliar_ ) served the Head of State as his primary staff, council, and they were, on occasion, even authorized to speak on her behalf. Ivaja was nowhere near the most influential Voliar, but he was the highest ranking officiary that came into regular contact with North America and the rest of Earth and he and Leo were as friendly as the political climate allowed them to be. The brochure in his hand advertised Ej-liara's many features and Toby got the message just from context—everything from live human service and authentic human cuisine to accurately-scaled renderings of ancient human masterpieces such as the Great Wall of China and the Eiffel Tower. He looked up just as an invitation to join Ej-liara in celebrating the human mega-holiday of Christmas appeared on the screen. "You'd think if they wanted to explore human culture they'd, y'know, visit our actual planet."

"Yeah," Leo said, and Toby got the sense he recently had this conversation with someone else. It seemed like there were only two kinds of reactions to Ej-liara being brought up for serious discussion: to ignore it and change the subject, or to become very red in the face and angrily explain everything that was wrong with Aubrapar and its culture. Leo didn't seem to have the time or patience for any sort of discussion right now. "Hotel and flight arrangements have already been made. It's four days of travel to get there and you're booked for two weeks on the planet. We'll have one of our guys take you out of the system and Ivaja's got somebody to take you the rest of the way."

"Can't you just send me to Italy or someplace?"

Leo looked up like he had been shocked, eyes wide behind his glasses, and Toby got the distinct feeling he was about to be scolded. "You're lucky this isn't a permanent thing. I had to talk the President down from firing you, but the more you talk the more I'm starting to think he might've had the right idea about this. If the Head of State had been as pissed as we thought she'd be, you'd've been off the payroll before you reached home."

This wasn't anything more than what he already knew, and much of what C.J. already yelled at him for. He was well aware he might have lost his job, but he wasn't sure he ever feared losing it—and that's what had pissed off the co-workers that cared about him so much. Still, he wasn't afraid to push his luck. "And Ivaja just conveniently offered to babysit me for two weeks?"

"Believe it or not they're not all bad people, Toby. I might even go so far to say that some of them are decent."

"Except when three-fourths of your population is starving and you ask for a little help."

Leo glanced at him as a warning and Toby couldn't tell if it was a smirk or a frown that he was holding back.

"And you're sure Ivaja's not setting this whole thing up as some assassination attempt?" Toby asked.

"If he was, do you think I'd warn you?" Leo retorted.

The brochure in Toby's hand flashed, still running its advertisements, and he steadied it in both of his hands. It now showed an Aubraparan couple at an expensive restaurant, smiling as a human waiter placed a dish on their table. "How an entire world of supposedly advanced beings can be so cruel and ignorant is beyond me."

Leo sat down behind his desk. "If you witnessed the conversations that went on in this office 400 years ago, you'd probably be asking yourself the same thing."

For the thousandth time since watching the President swear his oaths to North America and its people and all the people of Earth, it dawned on Toby the significance of the work they did here. He became uncomfortably aware of where he stood, physically, in this house, in this city, on this Earth, and all of its history. The history of his species, their ancient migrations from each continent to another, their evolution, each great civilization ever built and destroyed, every piece of artwork from scrawlings in caves to the Masters of the Renaissance, every war fought, every mythology created, every scientific advancement, everything the human species had ever accomplished was insignificant compared to the infinite history of the universe.

"We're a joke to them," Toby said, still staring at the brochure, not seeing its images and words. Leo looked up, slowly, from where he had been signing a few documents that required paper and ink. He was expecting Toby to leave. "18 billion mouths to feed on planet Earth, while they've got trillions more."

"You're probably right," Leo said. His pen hovered above the paper, unmoving in his hand. "But as long as there's a chance to get a little of what they've got, I think we should take it."

Toby returned the brochure to him. "Let's just hope we never become them."

— -

Josh drove him to the airport the next morning. He arrived early as Toby told him to, before the sun rose, and they talked for only a few minutes in the kitchen about meaningless things. He poured two cups of coffee and they both warmed their hands against the mugs but did not drink. Toby locked the door on his way out and left the keys in Josh's possession.

The streets of the District were barren at this hour. The only light visible emanated from the Washington and Lincoln Memorials ahead of them, and the city lights across the Potomac, beyond the District's border. They rode in silence.

Toby tried not to be ashamed of himself despite his undignified behavior and this blatant public scolding by the President. He meant what he said on the Aubraparan flagship and he had no regrets, but he did not deny that moment was not his most rational. Josh hadn't been with them to witness the incident but he seemed to know about it just as it occurred, probably getting the story through Leo. He would prefer it to be Leo, being the only one who wouldn't blow the event out of proportion. It was embarrassing no matter how much Josh did or didn't know, especially since he had always been Toby's inferior in some way and now had to watch as he was put on suspension.

Josh gripped the wheel tensely as they approached the Memorial Bridge, the District's most famous entrance point. There was an iconic photo published a number of years ago of a mother surrounded by Secret Service and police cars, holding her child who had thrown their stuffed toy over the fence on the far side of the bridge. The photo was featured in National Geographic and became a symbol of the era's political climate. Isolation of the capital was unjust and there was no well-founded excuse for it, but the longer Toby lived in the District the more he appreciated its purpose. Still, he could not shake the sickness he felt when he thought too deeply about it, thought how selfish it was of them as legislators, as leaders of a people, to cut themselves off so completely from the everyday struggles of their nation. He suspected Josh shared his conflicted feelings about it, but they both knew there was nothing to be done about it, nothing to be changed, and worrying themselves over inalterable matters was senseless. Josh physically and noticeably relaxed, and Toby looked out his window, watching as the old, dark buildings blurred together.

Josh cleared his throat laboredly, as if any guttural noise counted as an icebreaker, and waited until Toby turned to him. "Ej-liara, huh?" he said.

Toby glared at him disbelievingly until Josh noticed his expression. If he wanted to be heckled the entire drive there, he would have asked C.J. for a ride. Josh put his eyes back on the road.

"It's just—that place always seemed like a myth when we were kids. I haven't heard anybody talk about it in years." Toby looked back to the window and still did not respond. "Sending you out all that way—doesn't it seem, I don't know, extraordinarily excessive?"

"You can stop talking now."

"OK."

It was always an easier process leaving the District than entering. They had come to know the checkpoint guards well, some of them by name, and it only took a few minutes and an orderly review of their IDs before they were on to Virginia. The nearest public spaceport was less than an hour away, a ramshackle building away from the populace with only one shuttle operating at any given time. He and Josh did not speak for the greater portion of the drive. When they pulled up outside the terminal, as much as he enjoyed silence, Toby regretted not taking advantage of the opportunity they to talk.

One other car was parked several meters in front of them, unattended, with its blinkers on. Toby pulled his luggage out of the trunk and onto the sidewalk, one large suitcase and his messenger bag as a carry-on. Josh shut the trunk after him and they hugged briefly, Toby with his one free arm, Josh with both. His windbreaker was insufficient for the weather, and for the second they were close Toby could hear his teeth chattering. It had been a cold winter; at one point in January they'd gotten over 5 centimeters of snow, and even now, in mid-February, their breath still fogged the air.

Josh nodded pointlessly and stuck his hands into the pockets of his trousers. It did not feel like the appropriate moment to turn away from each other. "C.J. briefed you on the etiquette and everything?" He knew this already—it was just something to say.

It was flattering, like Josh did not want to let go of their conversation just yet. Toby indulged him. "Yeah."

"Immunizations?"

"Got them last week, before the conference."

"And Leo got an interpreter for you?"

"Ivaja has one."

Josh met his eyes directly. "We couldn't get you a guy of our own?"

"We're already wasting enough money getting me there. The fact that I'm going without a live interpreter, who would also need to be provided with food and accommodation, and speak a language that a fractional percent of humans even know one word of, is not the most unbelievable part of this."

Josh turned his head down. "This whole thing is unbelievable."

Toby sighed and looked at the other parked car, running with no one around it, its taillights still blinking. "Yeah, well. I kind of deserve it."

They hugged again. Toby let go of his suitcase this time and wrapped both his arms over Josh's shoulders. They held the hug longer than their last, with Josh's hands clutching the back of Toby's shirt and head rested against his neck. Toby shut his eyes for a moment, soaking him in, and he felt how cold Josh was. Nothing shielding him from the weather but a thin windbreaker, he was grossly underdressed for the crisp early morning and Toby rubbed his back in a trivial effort to warm him. This was the sort of thing that troubled him about Josh, how he forgot to take care of himself, or didn't love himself enough to remember, but now was not the time.

Josh drew in a breath as they parted and held eye contact, neither of them knowing what to say, before Toby patted him on the shoulder. "All right," he said.

"Yeah."

Toby took hold of his suitcase again and looped a thumb under the strap of his messenger bag. "Try not to destroy the continent while I'm gone."

Josh smiled and looked down again, but there was uneasiness in the way he stood. Toby couldn't reason why, but he had been this way since they returned to Earth. He wasn't worried, but it was obvious that something bothered him, and he regretted not asking Josh about it in the car when the mood was appropriate and they had the time. They nodded at each other once more and Toby was the first to turn away, fighting the urge to call a taxi once Josh was gone and hide out in New York for a few weeks while everyone assumed he was off-world.

"Toby!"

He turned just as he reached the entrance and the sliding doors opened for him. Josh stood by the trunk of his car, facing him but not making eye contact, the embodiment of his behavior these past days.

"Yeah?" Toby asked when he did not answer.

Josh was still apprehensive, and he tilted his head to the side before shaking it and jogging onto the sidewalk to avoid shouting. Toby took three steps to meet him, and the doors slid closed behind him. Josh still hesitated when they stood near. "I'm not supposed to tell you this," he said.

"Is it the kind of thing that's gonna land me in front of a grand jury?"

Josh paused. "No."

"Is it the kind of thing that'll get me in trouble with Leo or the President?"

A longer pause. "Maybe."

Toby turned away and the doors slid back open, but Josh caught his arm. He stopped and shrugged him off. "I'm being shipped away on an involuntary vacation, Josh. I'd rather not go, but apparently it's a matter of national security, and I don't want to be thinking about whatever you're about to tell me the entire time I'm there."

"Leo's hiring a new deputy while you're gone."

Toby opened his mouth to respond before the meaning of the statement registered. "What?"

Josh let go of his arm. "I'm interviewing applicants on Friday. We'll have somebody by the time you get back."

"And he didn't feel it might be a good idea to let me know?"

"It's been a year," he said, angry concern in his eyes, much like the kind he'd been receiving lately from C.J. "Which is an unreasonable amount of time for Leo to put off something like this. We've been in the White House a year and you've been taking on the work of two people, and you haven't been doing it well. It's an unreasonable amount of time."

Toby smirked incredulously, with his lips parted. "Is this what this whole thing is about?" he asked. "Leo's sending me out of the star system so he can make a few rearrangements while I'm not looking?"

"This isn't… it wasn't a tactic. You needed a few days off." Josh rubbed his forehead, and Toby wished fleetingly that he could take him along. Truth be told, they all needed a few days off. "You need a deputy, and you and I both know it wouldn't be easy if you were around during the interviews."

He knew the point would come when Leo wouldn't let him postpone it another week, another month; and now he was even more powerless over the situation than he would be if he was in his office. He had imagined when the day came and Leo no longer enabled him, Toby would be the one narrowing down their choices. "You got names?" he asked.

Josh shrugged. "A few resumes on my desk. We're considering moving up Paul Kovach or Annette."

"I'm not altogether fond of either of those individuals."

"Is there anyone on this Earth we could hire that you are fond of?"

"I'm very fond of the empty office next to mine."

Josh gave half a smile, like he wanted to be serious but had no control over his reaction. He bowed his head to hide it. "Don't you have a plane to catch or something?"

Toby smirked. "Or something."

They hugged for a third time, as briefly as the first, and Toby watched as Josh's car disappeared before entering the terminal.

— -

Interplanetary travel was always expensive. In the early days of commercial space flight fortunes were made by cruise companies offering viewing trips to Saturn or delivering vacationers to the Venus colony, until no one could any longer afford to vacation into space, even when the planets were in close proximity, and the cruise lines went bankrupt. Plans for interstellar cruise ships were made but never accomplished. Nowadays the only owners of starships were traders, the government, and the very wealthy—and most of them had used their ships to leave Sol for good. Currently not much money could be afforded toward technological development of any kind unless it created either food or a promising amount of jobs, so any civilian ships still in operation were either decommissioned military vessels or, more commonly, extremely outdated and falling apart by the seams. He was looking forward to some rustbucket that vaguely resembled those boxy, inefficient designs that were so popular in the 60s.

The flight plan, as it was relayed to him, was to take a regular shuttle to the International Space Station, then board as a passenger on a freighter that routinely traveled outside the solar system to trade with the Aubraparans at Proxima Centauri. Toby, rather than spend 30 days crawling through the black void between star systems, was scheduled to be picked up by an Aubraparan cruiser somewhere past Pluto, by which he would be finally escorted to Ej-liara.

There was only one other passenger leaving the Virginia spaceport on his flight. The shuttle was designed for a cozy two-dozen passengers and Toby chose a seat with a comfortable distance from the young lady, until a sickly chipper voice came over the loudspeaker to inform them that flights with under 10 passengers required the front row seats to be filled first for safety reasons, and the message had to play a second time before Toby grudgingly complied. The other passenger was young and nervous, jittery in her seat, and she smiled uneasily at Toby after he secured his carry-on in the compartment under his legs. She chose the seat closest to the narrow aisle and he took one on the other side, next to the window, and shut its blind.

She made small talk with him as if she was obligated to, smiling anxiously throughout their mostly one-sided conversation, wide and unsure, and Toby understood it as a side effect of adrenaline when she mentioned this was her first time flying. He was not in the mood for small talk with a stranger but he did his best not to unsettle her; the last thing he needed was vomit flying at him during take-off, as he had once witnessed with another first-time flyer. Toby looked at his watch as she continued talking, going on about all the research she did to prepare for spaceflight. Take-off was scheduled for 6 a.m. and it was 6:15 now, and besides the woman who took his ticket at the gate, he had yet to see a steward.

"Do you work at one of the science stations?" the girl asked after some silence, tilting her head to the side to look at him.

Toby glanced at her, caught off guard by the question. "No, I…" he hesitated, "work at the White House."

"Oh," she said, and not for the first time since Bartlet's administration Toby found that he had overestimated the reaction this revelation failed to elicit from strangers. "Didn't the President just get back from Mars?"

Toby didn't care to correct her. "Yeah."

She nodded. "Do you go with him on trips like that?" she asked, trying to keep the conversation alive.

He sighed. "Sometimes."

She continued to nod, and then settled her head back on the seat once more. "I'm heading to Jupiter," she said after a few seconds, lifting her head up again. "I got accepted for a geology internship at the station on Ganymede." She looked away when he didn't respond, but Toby could hear the nervous smile return in her voice. "It just… it seems so surreal. I'm actually going to be on another planet."

He glanced at her, the way she smiled like a child at an amusement park, staring out the window like they were already in space. She wasn't as bad as another passenger might have been, but it was only the two of them on the shuttle, and Toby found the less people sharing an experience like this one, the closer they were likely to become. She was perfectly fine when they left the atmosphere and got through the rest of the flight just as well, and Toby almost enjoyed the way she giggled as her hair floated in the lack of gravity, but he did not join her when the captain gave them permission to move about the cabin.

The ISS was busier than Toby expected, sending and receiving shuttles from all over the world that accommodated mostly scientists and engineers, and although the crowd was thin and none of them appeared exactly happy to be where they were, he got a sense of what this place was in its heyday. The station was a leftover from the high point of space tourism and its hallways were much too spacious for the meager traffic it now served, even with many sections of the station being shut down due to inactivity. Less than half the televisions displayed in the gates and passages were actually running and all of the shops were shut down aside from two restaurants and a newsstand. Its design reeked of neo-space age kitsch—steel-lined windows and doorways, starburst glass lanterns hanging in the bathroom, shiny triangular tile covered a majority of the floor—everything aside from the seating areas around the gate, which were matted with glittery silver carpeting.

He and the girl lunched together at the nicer of the two restaurants still in operation, and they talked a little more about geology and the kind of work she'd be doing on Ganymede, not much of which he understood. He saw her off to her flight, shook her hand and wished her luck, and never saw her again.

— -

His passage out of the solar system was a Mexican-owned freighter en route to the station at Proxima Centauri, which was still used as a trade center and traveling checkpoint between Earth and the Society. Despite being named La Joya the ship was a decaying piece of junk, at least three decades old, rattling and shaking each time they altered speed, and all throughout it had a stench like sweat and fried onions. The only passengers besides himself who were not crew were salesmen on their way to Proxima Centauri for trade, two who traveled together and one alone, but none who tried to speak to him. He prefered it that way, and spent the entire flight napping in the uncomfortable barracks provided to them.

They rendezvoused with the Aubraparan transport that night near Pluto. The Aubraparans were only a few minutes late, as was their fashion, and they took their time in sending over a shuttle. He waited 30 minutes before it finally arrived in the cargo bay, and several more while the shuttle pilot and a crewman from the freighter struggled to have a conversation, neither of them familiar with the other's language. They came to a resolution shortly and the pilot helped Toby pull his luggage onto the shuttle. He evidently spoke as much English as he did Spanish; despite greeting him with a rehearsed "Welcome!" he only looked at Toby blankly when he replied, and moved on to starting up the shuttle.

Though relations with Aubrapar could at worst be described as neutral and there was no foreseeable motive for their allies to harm him, Toby had concerns about putting himself in their hands. He never sensed any malice from any of them, government official or other, and the Aubraparans never failed to treat their guests with anything but the utmost benevolence, but he was inherently distrustful. Their kindness seemed like a charade, camouflage for their sinister interior, but he had nothing but a gut feeling. He didn't truly think they had any intention of manipulating him, at least for the moment; he stayed on guard nonetheless.

The lights of the Aubraparans' shuttlebay were much brighter than those of the gloomy freighter, and it took a few seconds of blinking for Toby's eyes to adjust after he stepped off the shuttle, and tasted the bitter air that pumped through every Aubraparan vessel. Two young stewards immediately took his luggage from his hands, wearing the same uniforms of other government ships. An Aubraparan functionary waited for him, and by his businesslike plum smock and the formal sash around his waist he either was or worked for someone of importance. Aubraparan gender was difficult to discern but Toby observed him as masculine, with a wide chest and strong jaw. He was young still, 25 or by human comparison, and he greeted Toby with a smile and noticeably practiced handshake.

"Good morning, Mr. Ziegler," he said enthusiastically, in the same nasally accent other dignitaries of his race spoke with. "My name is Dilarc. Is there anything I can get for you?"

This was the tiresome Aubraparan politeness he was well acquainted with, a one-dimensional selflessness that only extended as far as the individual's convenience. "No, I'm fine," he said, watching as the two stewards went ahead with his luggage.

"Very good," Dilarc said, still smiling. He was tall, the average for Aubrapar, his skin a duller orange than what Toby was used to, and his straw-like hair was pulled back into an odd braid, a style he had never seen before. "I will be your assistant for the remainder of your travels, so at all times feel free to ask me for anything you need."

Toby nodded. "Do I have a room?"

The ship was government owned and designed, Dilarc explained on their walk out of the shuttlebay, an older model that was typically used for transporting delegates to and from other planets within the Society. He moved very fluidly onto talking about himself, going into detail about his influential work as Voliar Ivaja's secretary (Toby knew that Ivaja had a multitude of secretaries) and what a valued part of his staff he was. The Voliar had apparently requested Dilarc for this task specifically due to his proven diplomatic loyalties and skill n human dialects. He continued boasting the entire way to the guest quarters, until Toby regretted ever advocating for lingual studies between their two planets.

The quarters were typical for an Aubraparan bedroom: carved ceiling and patterned walls, an armoire and desk, the bed round and raised on a platform. Despite Toby's assertion that he could figure it out on his own, Dilarc insisted on teaching him how to use the appliances around his room and in the bathroom. He had some experience with Aubraparan restrooms in the past, but during interplanetary conferences he always took showers on their own ship. Aubrapar had no showers, only baths, and Toby could only listen to a minute or two of instructions about the differences in Aubraparan and human bathing techniques before he had to feign exhaustion to convince Dilarc to leave.

Ej-liara was 600 light years away and their ETA was 3 and a half days. This ship was as much like a hotel as the rest of Aubrapar's diplomatic vessels, wide halls and comfortable carpeting and tall, ornate ceilings. It was smaller, with only two levels and the shuttlebay in its underbelly. It carried a crew of around 20 with 5 suites for passengers, one conference room, a larger than necessary entertainment center, and a galley that acted more like a five-star restaurant.

Toby did not have much taste for Aubraparan food and tried to eat as little as possible, but he felt pressured to enjoy the meals Dilarc ordered to his room without request. Aubraparans ate less overall than the standard human—their breakfasts were large and full of carbs and protein, more than what Toby could stomach, but by afternoon they entered into a sort of grazing period where they came and took food as they liked, sometimes having a smaller meal in the evening. The servants were amused by his alien habits the first time he ordered a large evening meal, but after the second night they seemed annoyed or disgusted, the first he had ever witnessed any sort of Aubraparan temper. Even the diplomats in their meetings never rose above a quiet level of stress.

The days passed by slowly and Toby decided to begin a journal primarily detailing his interactions with Dilarc and the others he came into contact with. It was purely for his own benefit, just something to occupy his time and keep his writing in practice. It also helped him to have an outlet where he could poetically describe his abhorrence of the situation and his hosts.

On the morning of the third day, Dilarc informed him they were passing by a communications relay and he quickly drafted a written message to C.J., informing her that he was not being held for ransom as he feared and that Josh had told him about Leo's plans for a new Deputy Communications Director. He included a list of names he thought might be worthwhile to check out. He recorded a spoken message for Andy as well, and gave them both to Dilarc to be transmitted.

He sat at breakfast with Dilarc on the fourth day and watched the man devour a large cut of steak and a foul-smelling broth that was somewhere between soup and tea. They both had coffee, a drink that had become trendy on Aubrapar in the past decade. Coffee beans were Earth's main export and a high percentage of it was illegally traded, and a large part of their recent negotiations with dealt with Aubrapar's efforts to crack down on illegal trade. The major holdback was that there wasn't much motivation for their government to take action when they knew very well that legally-traded coffee would be a considerable markup.

With Dilarc as his interpreter Toby attempted to order fried eggs and it seemed like the waiter understood, but what he brought back was a something bland and chunky that resembled opaque, mashed gelatin. Toby instead stuck to the soup that tasted like beef and didn't dare ask what was in it. As loquacious as Dilarc was at any given time of day, he never had much to say during breakfast. His silence was nearly absolute this morning, aside from a short greeting and speaking to the waiter, and the serenity that encompassed their table was almost as pleasant as solitude. They sat beside the window, as both of them prefered, but instead of eating Toby watched the stars, so far away that everything appeared to be perfectly still, just like gazing up at the sky at 1 a.m. with not a soul around.

Ever since boarding he had a suspicion the ship's crew spent a good deal of their time gossiping about him, conjecturing about why an insignificant human would be given transport on an Aubraparan government vessel. He often saw the workers in groups of two or more at the far end of the hall or in the galley between breakfast and grazing, keeping their voices to whispers and dispersing when he came near. It was plausible that his distrust of these people was turning into paranoia and his contempt getting the better of his reason, but when he caught them looking it was always with interest in something more than his strange, human behavior. Dilarc never asked questions, but imaginably he was briefed on the circumstances of Toby's 'vacation' before he even left Aubrapar, or was too excited about being able to showcase his lingual abilities to a native English-speaker to raise questions. Or, perhaps, he knew more about what was going on than even Toby did. It was odd that after all that Voliar Ivaja, who was open in his negotiations with Earth but never showed solid support to lend aid to their planet, would so quickly provide a subordinate worker of a foreign government with, essentially, a vacation package.

The hottest coffee was served here was lukewarm, as it was with most Aubraparan food, and Toby had to hold the liquid on his tongue a few extra seconds to trick himself into enjoying the cold taste. "So," he said. "Ej-liara."

Dilarc chewed his food. "Yes," he replied evenly, as if he was asked a definite question.

"Have you been there?"

The translator dabbed his mouth with his napkin. "Yes, many times. I'm told it lives up to its namesake… that it is just like the real thing. There are even humans living there."

Toby tried not to let any of his judgements surface. "Oceans and rivers, even?" This was a joke, teasing, but Dilarc did not seem to pick up on it.

"Yes," he said. "It was a waterworld when we developed it. The waters there are saltier than Earth's, I'm told, but all the major biomes are present: forests, deserts, and the tropics around the equator." He had evidently been doing some research, perhaps anticipating Toby's questions about the terraformed planet. "The winters are longer because of the planet's orbit. We can't change that, of course, but we manage to regulate your four seasons fairly well."

Whether the barrier was cultural or lingual, it seemed to prevent Dilarc from understanding that what he was asking for was more than just facts. He had read all of this information in the brochures and official reports he obtained before leaving Earth. There wasn't much concept of small talk in Aubraparan culture; their conversations always had a vivid purpose. What purpose that was varied quite a bit between individuals. Dilarc's, for instance, was either to boast about himself or flaunt the information he obviously memorized specifically for his assignment as Toby's guide. From then on he stopped asking any questions that could lead into long-winded answers.

He wondered too, if this purposive approach to conversation fed into the responsiveness he witnessed many times during the President's negotiations with Aubrapar. The delegates they met with never failed to bypass all final decisions, but their questions and answers were straightforward and they made no attempts at deception. Though they were blind to their own egotism, they were truthful. Toby was always amazed at how candid their Head of State was in the broadcasts she made after each conference with the World Leadership, sharing everything she could with her citizens about their discussions.

Toby was in his room, putting these musings about Aubrapar and its perception of honesty and openness onto paper when a voice resounded from the hall. It spoke in Aubraparan and was not recognizable through the door but he could tell it came from the ship's PA system. He contacted Dilarc through the communication gadget he'd been lent, a short-range device as he understood. It took him several tries to make it work, and left him feeling like an old-timer out of touch with modern technology. "What did the captain say?" he spoke into it.

The device was not created for immediate reply and there was a few seconds of delay before Dilarc's response: "We dropped out of FTL and have entered the Ej-liaran system, and our speed has slowed to 350… I'm sorry, I don't know how to say it in Earth measurements."

"Do you know how long it will be in minutes?"

It was a second or two longer before his reply. "40 minutes."

Their pace gradually slowed the closer they came to the planet and after 20 minutes two stewards came to Toby's room to retrieve his luggage. One of them told him in a thick accent, no doubt coached by Dilarc, that he could wait in the viewport until his transport was ready. He declined and the stewards took his things away, but once he was left with nothing but his person and an empty room, he decided to leave for the viewport.

The room was located at the bow of the ship, its window shaped into a point that allowed a panoramic view of the space around them. It was not as big as the ones he had seen aboard the Head of State's cruiser and the station at Proxima Centauri. Ej-liara sat at arm's length, the size of a golf ball, growing bigger as they approached it. To his eye the planet was not any smaller or larger than Earth, and it was swathed in the same white clouds, dark oceans and green terrain, an uncanny likeness to the blue marble he knew so well. The only thing that gave it away was the shape of its continents. The sight made him nauseous with anger and home-sickness he wouldn't admit to. It was beautiful, undeniably beautiful, and that was the worst part about it.

The aliens that refused to help them had created a profitable replication of his home, the place he loved and worked every day to heal. They had taken it and imitated its beauty and chose to ignore its suffering. Here lay the utopia that should have been theirs.

Whether this was an intended part of his punishment, to remove him not just beyond their sight but to this distorted caricature of his home, to affect him psychologically, was unclear. He saw it now, the cruelty, and dread felt like cold sweat on his palms.


End file.
